


Sentimentality, Vol. 3

by Batedbreath



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Drug Use, Falling In Love, Friends to Lovers, Growing Up, M/M, POV Alternating, Pining, idiots to lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:00:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22201486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Batedbreath/pseuds/Batedbreath
Summary: Eddie gives him a dirty look but then he just huffs and plops back into his place against Richie’s chest.“Fine,” he says and picks up his comic again, thumbing to the page he was on. “I’m not the one who’s gonna have a heart attack at twenty-five.”Richie sighs. With you around it’ll probably give out before then, he thinks.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 5
Kudos: 23





	Sentimentality, Vol. 3

**Author's Note:**

> Little vingettes about life and longing. No clowns or much in the way of plot. 
> 
> Warnings for potentially insensivite teenagers, sex, anxiety, self-medicating behavior 
> 
> Starts around eighth grade and carries on into early adulthood. 
> 
> Enjoy :)

“I am optimistic that things will fall into place, and one day I’ll be sitting in New York City with correct bus fare in my pocket.”

\- David Sedaris, _Theft by Finding_

Kick.

Kick.

Kick.

Eddie scowls down at the little indents in the wooden top of his desk. He holds himself rigidly, eyes narrowing. Someone has carved the word ‘fuck’ into the left-hand corner. He starts in on tracing over the _f_ with his pencil.

Kick.

Kick.

Kick.

Eddie gives up and resigns himself to staring straight ahead at old Mrs. Hill. She’s too busy to notice, concentrating on extricating a little glass bottle from her overflowing purse and dumping its contents into her coffee mug.

Kick.

The next kick comes so hard, Eddie’s whole desk scoots forward. It’s enough to break what little restraint he has left. He whirls around.

“Oh my god, _what_.”

Richie tips his chair back on its hind legs, in danger of falling over. An uncharitable part of Eddie feels like giving him a little push.

 _Me?_ Richie mouths, pointing to himself. He looks behind him as if there’s anyone else who Eddie could possibly be addressing, anyone else in detention at all. There’s only Anthony Beckaw who sits all the way across the room, and he’s busy picking dirt out from under his nails.

Eddie rolls his eyes so hard he probably sprains something.

“Yes, you,” he whispers. “Stop fucking kicking me, mophead.”

Richie’s eyebrows fly up. “Mophead?” He shakes his head of dark hair into his face so it nearly covers his eyes. “You don’t like my hair?”

“You’re gonna get me _another_ detention if you don’t shut up,” Eddie says, ignoring his question.

All four legs of Richie’s chair land heavily on the floor as he leans forward. “Oh yeah? Hey –”

“No–” Eddie starts but there’s no stopping him.

“Mrs. Hill!”

Eddie feels his stomach drop as he imagines asking his mother to sign yet another detention slip but there’s no need – Mrs. Hill is slumped back in her chair, apparently reading a book but actually fast asleep. Her eyes aren’t fully closed but her horn-rimmed glasses are sliding down her nose and she’s letting out tiny breathy snores.

“Mrs. Hill,” Richie sing-songs loudly, “How’s business? Mr. Hill doing well?”

Mrs. Hill gives a kind of grunt at that but Eddie’s pretty sure she doesn’t actually wake up. Anthony Beckaw takes the time to look up from his gross nails to check out the commotion.

“See,” Richie says, bright eyed, “nothing to worry about.”

“No,” Eddie says. “No, this is _your_ fault. Now I have to give this fucking thing to my mom again.” He holds the little pink slip up to Richie’s face. “And she’s actually going to kill me this time.”

This whole mess started when Richie found an unopened condom on their walk to school.

“Can’t believe I dropped this on my way to your mom’s house last night,” Richie had said, picking up the little foil square.

“Ew,” Eddie said out of habit. Then, “give me that.”

“Uh uh,” Richie held it up above his head. “What do we say?”

Richie shot up five inches at some point in seventh grade when no one was looking and Eddie has never quite been able to catch up.

Eddie elbowed him in the side and snatched it from Richie’s hand. “We say give it to me now.”

Richie let out a squawk and clutched at his side. “Your mom says give it to me now,” he coughed. 

By the time they’d reached school, Richie had his whole forearm in the condom and was trying to stretch it past his elbow as Eddie doubled over laughing.

They were promptly given detention by Mr. Maison, the history teacher. Richie didn’t seem to care much. He hung back as they got written up, hands in his pockets.

“This is not fair,” Eddie pleaded with Mr. Maison. “This is against the Geneva Convention.”

Mr. Maison just continued scribbling down their offenses on those damned little pink slips. 

“You’re – you’re punishing everyone for the actions of one bad egg.” He waved a hand maniacally in Richie’s direction. Richie snorted.

Now Eddie has no choice but to spend an entire hour after school contemplating his choices in friends and staring at all the shit people have carved in to this germ-laden desk.

When the bell finally rings Eddie shoots up out of his desk and heads for the door without a backwards glance.

“Eddie – Eds, wait up.” Richie stuffs his homework unceremoniously into his backpack which is frayed and re-patched with duct tape.

When Richie does catch up he slings his long arm around Eddie’s shoulders. “Eddie.”

Eddie shakes him off. “Stop.” He ignores the semi-hurt expression that flashes across Richie’s face.

“Man, that wasn’t all my fault – you laughed!”

“I only get in trouble when you’re around, _man_ ,” Eddie sneers.

Richie shrugs and pulls on Eddie’s sleeve. “You could use a little trouble in your life. I provide all the excitement.” Richie smiles tentatively at him and bumps his shoulder as they walk towards the main road. 

Loathe as Eddie is to admit it, that’s – sort of true. Eddie loves all their friends but he can’t pretend that Richie hasn’t increasingly stepped into that _best_ friend spot.

“Whatever,” Eddie says. He digs his little bottle of hand sanitizer out of his pocket. “Those desks are so disgusting.” He grabs Richie’s hand and squirts some into both their palms.

*

By midway through freshman year of high school, Richie can be sure everyone’s lied to him. High school is no better than middle school. Really, the only noticeable differences so far are acne and more homework. 

“There are dances now,” Stan says, not really paying Richie any attention. Instead he’s staring at Susie Meyers across the room as she takes diligent notes in purple ink.

Richie throws up his hands, “Can you pay attention to me for like, five seconds? You can think about devirginizing the prom queen on your own time.”

Stan elbows him hard in the ribs and gets back to trying to find the liver of the frog they’re supposed to be dissecting. “Shut up,” he hisses. 

“I’m serious,” Richie says. “Now everyone will probably try telling us that everything will be awesome when we get to college. As if that isn’t twenty years from now.”

“I think I found it,” Stan says and starts reading out the qualities of a frog liver.

“College probably _will_ be awesome,” Eddie says. Richie turns to look at him. He’s clutching his stool with white knuckles and staring up at the ceiling, presumably to avoid eye contact with the frog’s kidneys. “No acne, no dances,” he lists out on his fingers, “and only homework on stuff you wanna know more about.”

“Probably no Susie Meyers though,” Richie coos at Stan and squeezes the back of his neck.

Stan shoulders his hand away. “Richie, seriously.” He finally manages to extract the liver and places it in a little plastic jar.

Richie turns to Eddie. “Maybe you could put in a word for Stan the man to good ole’ Susie.”

Eddie addresses the ceiling, “Susie is cool. I could talk to her if you – “

Stan drops his scalpel. “No – that’s. It’s nothing. Please don’t bring me up.”

Eddie shrugs. “Okay.”

Richie snickers and flops down to rest his chin on his forearms and stares into the frog’s tiny bead-like eyes as Stan searches for more fleshy pinkish organs to cut away. Ever since Eddie joined track he’s been talking to all the girls on the team, like Susie Meyers and Elizabeth Cohen – you know the type: perfect handwriting, clean white shoes, parents who probably aren’t divorced.

Whenever Richie serves a detention that coincides with Eddie’s track meets, he waits around for Eddie to be done so they can walk home together. Lately Eddie walks up with Susie in tow. Their stupid bright red _Derry High Track_ sweaters are visible from a mile away, as are the matching mid-thigh shorts. They look like an advert for Gap or something.

“Maybe _you_ should ask Susie to the dance,” Richie says suddenly.

Eddie’s eyebrows do this scrunching thing. “Why?”

Richie shrugs, all nonchalance even though his heart starts beating just this side of too fast. “You like her right?”

“Yeah. So?”

“So you _like_ like her?

Eddie takes his eyes off the ceiling for the first time in half an hour to look at Richie.

“No.”

Richie rests his chin in the palm of his hand. “Well why not?” he prods.

Eddie’s eyes dart from Richie to Stan, who’s paused in his hunt for the gall bladder.

“Because – because Stan _like_ likes her,” Eddie snaps. “Why don’t _you_ ask her since you’re so concerned?”

“I already have a date,” Richie says without even a moment’s hesitation.

“Oh, yeah?” Eddie says like he doesn’t believe him. It stings, just a little. “Who is it?”

“Me, you, Susie and your mom should just all catch a ride together –”

Eddie socks him in the shoulder, hard. “Fuck you.”

Richie laughs, inexplicably delighted even though his shoulder throbs; He grabs Eddie’s wrists before he can do it again. Eddie thrashes his elbows around until one hits Richie’s solidly in the collar bone but his lips are twitching like he wants to laugh. Stan sighs and scoots his tray of frog parts away from them.

They end up knocking each other off their respective stools and while they don’t receive detention, they do get a lecture about respect for the frog that gave its life for their education, which is plenty worse than any detention when it comes to making Richie feel like utter shit.

Sleep is elusive that night. Richie lies on his stomach under all the covers and reaches one hand down the side of his bed to pick out little balls of lint from the carpet. He thinks about the frog and its tiny black eyes and the way it was all laid out on its back with its innards out for all of Mrs. Connors third period science class to gawp at. He thinks about those stupid red track sweaters and the way his fingers fit around Eddie’s wrists after he’d socked him and the way his big brown eyes had gone bigger when Richie brought up asking Susie Meyers to the dance. He looked caught out, laid open like that frog. 

He pictures Eddie in a button-down shirt with his hands placed gingerly on Susie Meyer’s waist as they spin in an awkward circle at the spring fling.

He rolls restlessly on to his back and stares up at the ceiling. Once the image is there, he can’t stop the wave: Eddie and Susie holding hands on the way to class. Eddie and Susie laughing and talking, the same way they do now, but more. Passing notes. Sharing jokes. Making out in the corner of the hallway like that gross sophomore couple that slobbers all over each other.

Richie gently lays his pillow on top of his face and curls his arms around it and doesn’t find sleep until the sky is a dull blue.

*

Richie’s predictions come true; The Freshman spring fling is a bust. Susie Meyers, predictably, goes with none of them, though not for lack of trying on Stan’s part. She ends up with some guy named Tom who’s a junior and is also on the track team.

“The sting of love,” Richie claps a hand on Stan’s back as they watch them sway out on the dance floor. Stan slumps against the wall.

Richie suggests they blow off all future dances and everyone whole heartedly agrees.

So when Sophomore year’s winter formal comes around and Richie’s parents are out of town, he immediately calls up Bill and Eddie. Mrs. Kasprack isn’t all that keen on handing the phone over but Eddie does eventually manage to get it with promises that the conversation will be short. 

Eddie walks over to Richie’s around 8 and is immediately ushered into Mr. and Mrs. Tozier’s master bathroom. He turns to see that Bill is sitting down on the floor of the shower next to Richie’s mom’s shampoos and body soaps. The fan is on and the window is open. “What the fuck?” Eddie asks him.

“Come on,” is all Richie says and ushers Eddie in to the shower as well. He sits on the floor next to Bill who shrugs. Richie maneuvers himself into the opposite corner after a fair bit of flailing. He reaches around to close the shower door. It’s a bit cozy. Eddie’s elbow keeps banging into Bill’s.

In Richie’s hands are a ripe red apple and a ball point pen.

Eddie feels the need to ask again, “What the fuck?” His voice echoes strangely off the tiled walls.

Richie reaches into the pocket of his jeans and pulls out a plastic baggie of what is clearly pot.

Eddie’s eyes go wide. “Where did you get that?”

“Paul,” Richie says. Paul is one of a group of Senior morons who have taken in Richie in a kind of kid brother-slash-mascot capacity because they think he’s funny.

“Okay,” Bill says slowly, eyeing the baggie warily. “What about the apple?”

“Well how the hell else are we gonna smoke it? Neither of you bozos helped out in the search for paraphernalia.”

It’s true. Richie has been talking about finding a pipe or some kind of bong but neither Eddie nor Bill nor any of the others knew where they could find something like that. Eddie hadn’t even tried; He was pretty sure inhaling anything other than oxygen would fuck up his lungs for good. He’s been shocked how well they’ve held up under all the strain from track but he’s not about to push his luck.

Richie starts shoving the tip of the pen into the top of the apple and then does the same on the side to create a little L-shaped tunnel. “What the hell are you doing?” Eddie asks. He feels strangely young, and a little bit annoyed Richie didn’t tell him about getting pot from Paul or that he knows how to make a pipe out of a fruit. When the hell did Richie become Jerry Garcia?

“Are you gonna smoke weed out of that?” Bill asks.

Richie holds up the apple in front of Bill’s nose so he goes cross-eyed. “ _We_ are going to smoke weed out of this Billy boy,” Richie says in an old timey movie voice.

“Why are we in the shower?”

Richie opens the little bag. A strong skunk-like scent hits Eddie’s nose.

“So the smoke goes up through the vent,” Richie points up to the ceiling, “and doesn’t stink up the whole bathroom.”

Physics-wise it’s not totally sound; Eddie’s pretty sure any smoke will just travel up and pour out the top of the shower just like steam does.

All of this is not at all the point though. “I am not smoking that.”

Richie looks up from where he’s stuffing little bits of pot into the side of the apple. “Why not?”

It’s the stupidest question Eddie has ever heard. “Um, lung cancer? Brain damage?”

Richie sets the apple between his jean-clad knees and digs a little Bic out of his pocket. He turns to Bill. “Bill, you’re gonna smoke out of the apple with me, right?”

Bill fidgets, rubs his palms against his knees. “You first.”

“That’s the spirit,” he claps a hand against the wall and it echoes.

Eddie watches in grim fascination as Richie puts his mouth over the topmost hole in the apple and, after a few tries, flicks the lighter on. It… actually… it sort of works. When Richie pulls away, a faint grey smoke flows out of his mouth, curls into the air and disappears.

They pass the apple back and forth until Bill starts coughing and when he surfaces he’s a little glassy eyed and pink cheeked. Richie thinks this is the funniest thing to ever happen. Eddie waves a hand in the air to dissipate the gross particles he’s probably taking in by sheer osmosis.

A few hours later, Eddie can admit that it is a little funny. Bill is rifling through Richie’s panty for snacks and Richie is… giggly. And touchy. He keeps running a hand through Eddie’s hair or touching his shoulder every time he walks by.

Everything Eddie has ever heard about pot has included, ‘but you won’t get high the first time,’ and unless Bill and Richie became really good actors overnight, the rule doesn’t seem to have applied to them.

After that day Bill decides that pot just makes him sleepy and hungry and it’s not really for him. Richie, on the other hand, develops a bit of a habit.

Eventually he does procure a real pipe and Mrs. Tozier can stop asking where Richie’s sudden propensity for apples is coming from. Instead he just sit in bed and blows the little clouds of smoke out the window and no one is the wiser.

Eddie can admit after months of this that it doesn’t really seem like there are as many adverse effects of marijuana as he once thought. Mostly it just slows Richie down; He stops complaining about not sleeping. Eddie can always tell when he’s smoked because he’s quieter than normal, kind of slow and smiley.

Sometimes when Eddie comes over in the evening, Richie will smoke and Eddie will watch, quietly curious. Then they open all the windows in Richie’s room, lie out on his bed, and turn on a CD.

On the last day of school they can be found lying like parentheses facing the same way. The breeze from the window cools the room and Kurt Cobain plays quietly.

Richie has been drawing shapes on his back with the tip of his finger for at least fifteen minutes now and he’s practically asleep.

These afternoons when it’s just them are pretty much the quietest Eddie’s mind ever gets, and he’s pretty sure it’s the same for Richie. Eddie’s never asked but he’s pretty sure.

It would be kind of a weird question. _Hey do you like sitting silently together as much as I do?_ How would you even bring that up? And maybe if he did bring it up, Richie will think it’s weird to enjoy it as much as Eddie does. Or, as Eddie has long suspected, saying out loud that his favorite part of any day is lying on Richie’s bed, talking, or listening to music or whatever will sound strange or too much or something. Too much of what? Eddie doesn’t know. The way they are when no one else is around has always seemed like a secret for some reason.

Richie draws a long line down his back from the nape of his neck nearly to his tail bone. Eddie closes his eyes and stops thinking.

*

It’s hot as hell in Derry in August, even once the sun has gone down. By the time Richie has peddled the five and a quarter blocks to Eddie’s house and is locking up his bike outside, his hair is sticking to his forehead with sweat.

He jogs past the gate and climbs up the metal trellis leading to the cracked second story window.

“Eddie,” he hisses. He pushes the window open a bit more and grabs a hold of the ledge. “Eddie?” he says again.

Richie peaks through the window; Eddie is lying on his bed, reading the comic book Richie’d biked over to talk about. He visibly jumps and then eyes the window warily. “Richie?”

Richie pulls himself ungracefully into Eddie’s room and lands in a heap on the carpet.

Eddie slowly rolls off his bed and walks over to where Richie is stumbling to his feet. 

“I – “ Richie starts and then abruptly shuts his mouth for fear of what might come out of it. Eddie is… not wearing a shirt. Richie’s eyes go straight to Eddie’s collarbones, his stomach, the little divots in his hips, the trail of soft looking brown hair that disappears under the waistband of his cotton pajama pants.

“Nice titties,” Richie says finally and flicks Eddie’s chest.

Eddie pushes his hand away. “What are you doing here? My mom’s still awake.”

“Not anymore,” Richie says, “I saw her turn off the lights downstairs when I pulled up.”

Eddie seems to deflate somewhat at that. “Oh, good.” He flops back down on his bed but then scooches over closer to the wall, presumably to make room for Richie. They usually read the newest editions of this series together so they can get reactions in real time. Right.. Richie will just lie down next to him. Right… now.

He shoves his hand in his pockets and tries to make his feet move but they won’t. Eddie gives him a questioning look; He swallows and situates himself next to Eddie in such a way that he’s touching absolutely no bare skin. He can’t help that it’s still in his line of sight though, and his eyes keep straying without his permission. They’ve spent the whole summer down at the quarry with Bev and Mike and Bill and all Richie has to show for it is some light freckles across his nose and shoulders and a nasty sunburn on his back but Eddie looks all tanned and golden. Every time he laughs at something in the comic or something Richie says the muscles in his stomach shift and his (bare) shoulder rubs against Richie’s.

After an hour of pretending to read Richie gives up and just turns the page at random intervals. This was an awful idea. He shouldn’t have come. Or maybe this is the best idea he’s ever had. He simultaneously wants to run screaming from this and do something crazy like scoot closer. 

At some point Eddie makes the decision for him by leaning his weight over so his head is resting against Richie’s shoulder and he stays like that. Richie is ninety nine percent sure he’s going to vibrate out of his skin if this goes on any longer.

 _This is so fucking stupid_ , he thinks. He’s seen Eddie shirtless before. He’s laid in bed with Eddie hundreds, maybe thousands of times. There’s literally no reason in the world for him to freak out at this.

Still, that little voice in the back of Richie’s head tells him he knows exactly why his heart is threatening to beat out of his ribcage. The little voice has been there forever, for years probably, and it’s been getting louder and louder lately. Richie’s pretty sure the loudness is directly correlated with Eddie’s proximity and level of nakedness, so it’s threatening to scream at him now.

“Oh my god,” Eddie says and lets out a high-pitched giggle, and bangs his foot into the mattress.

“What,” Richie murmurs and cocks his head to see where Eddie is in the comic. His hair is soft and it tickles Richie’s jaw.

“This guy looks just like Bill,” he snorts and points to a character on the page who does faintly look like a cartoon version of Bill ten years from now if you squint.

“Yeah, I see it.”

They go quiet again. It takes another hour for Richie to work up to it. He seriously considers pretending to stretch before he remembers how obvious and stupid that would be. Instead he just shifts his arm as if it had gone numb and hangs it around Eddie’s (bare, seriously, completely naked) shoulders. Eddie just shifts closer and settles with his head on Richie’s chest like it’s nothing.

“You okay?” Eddie asks after a moment. The way he shifts his head to look up at Richie brings his face so close Richie can see every individual freckle and eyelash.

“Hm?” Richie manages. “Yeah. Why?”

Eddie lays a hand over the center of his chest and Richie sucks in an involuntary breath.

“Your heart’s pounding.”

Richie wills his heart to slow but he can feel the warmth of Eddie’s palm through his shirt and his face is super close and he’s fucking naked from the waist up. The whole situation would induce cardiac arrest in anyone.

“Oh, that’s – no. My heart just like, does that sometimes,” he says nonsensically and considers bodily throwing himself out the open window he came through. 

“You get palpitations?” Eddie asks and his eyebrows scrunch up in that way that they do. Eddie is probably the only person in the whole world who might actually attribute Richie’s traitorously pounding heart to some kind of malaise rather than good old-fashioned heart stopping nerves.

Richie rolls his eyes automatically. “No, dumbass, I’m seventeen, I think I’m clear on heart problems for another fifty or so years.”

It’s a lie in a few different directions when Richie thinks about it. For one, his heart does beat in overtime, sometimes for no discernable reason at all. Only right in this instant he knows exactly why.

Eddie gives him a dirty look but then he just huffs and plops back into his place against Richie’s chest. “Fine,” he says and picks up his comic again, thumbing to the page he was on. “I’m not the one who’s gonna have a heart attack at twenty-five.”

Richie sighs. _With you around it’ll probably give out before then,_ he thinks.

About two hours in Richie is pretty sure his breathing is convincingly even and he can actually focus enough to read. At about the same time, Eddie swears he hears Mrs. K moving around downstairs and freaks out. He scrambles to turn off his bedside light off and pushes Richie up and over towards the window.

He climbs back down the trellis without complaint and unlocks his bike as silently as he can. Normally Richie peddles home in five minutes flat but tonight he walks his bike the whole way. The air is heavy and hot and it sticks to his skin but he needs a few minutes without anyone else around to let his mind wander freely.

Around block three he kicks the stand on his bike and sits down on the curb under a puddle of yellow light coming from a single street lamp. He puts his hand to the center of his chest, exactly where Eddie had put his, just holds it there and stares up at the vast black sky contemplating how truly, truly fucked he is.


End file.
